re: Les Miles' recent bowl record - a little perspective

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Why are we comparing Miles and Bear Bryant.

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that's a great damn question.

Miles isn't even a top 5 coach in this era. Certainly not even remotely close to Bear Bryant.

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Because they are both incredibly successful coaches who have gone through relative slumps.

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So Bear's 'incredibly successful' is on par with Miles' 'incredibly successful'?

it's unfair to Miles to even have this discussion.

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Looks like almost all Bears bowl losses was in Nc games or the next best bowl. Not mediocore bowls like Miles has been. Nice try though!

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I thought this would come up, and I considered addressing it in my original post, but didn't want to make it too long. Yes, there were fewer bowls in those days, and consequently, only the top 10-16 teams were involved. Still, whatever bowl you're in, you are usually playing a team that is close to your level of expertise, so whether you are a top five team playing in a major New Year's Day bowl or a lower tier team playing in a second or third rate bowl, your chances of winning should be roughly the same.

Again, the point wasn't that Miles was the equal of Bear Bryant or that he has had as much success. It's just that no coach is going to win all his games when he is matched up against equally talented teams, so LSU's recent bowl record, on its face, doesn't necessarily tell you much about the long-term direction of the program.

8-8

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Mack Brown is a much better comparison so Les Miles.

Both won a national title and played in another one four years later, both got beat by Bama.

Mack Brown had 4 seasons with 8-9 wins and he resigned in the 4th year after the national title loss. The jury is still out on Les.

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you should buy it. CFB is a multi billion dollar industry nowadays. No, I wasn't around in the 60's, but I think it's fair to say there is more pressure to win when you have coaches making 3-7 million dollars a year and coordinators are getting close to 2M

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By your logic, there was a lot less pressure on the old Baltimore Colts and Jets to win Super Bowl III than there was on the Broncos and Seahawks to win last year, simply because there is more money sloshing around now. Maybe it's just me, but I doubt any of those old Colts and Jets players would agree with you.

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I'm as worried as anyone about how things are going, and I was absolutely sick about the ND game and the news of Chavis leaving.

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I am going to be a homer here about Miles bowls losses over the years. At the end pf the Penn State game, the defense , which had played a pretty good game, could not stop Penn State from driving down the field late in the game to take the lead. LSU drives down the field and then gets penalized for unsportsman like conduct because a Offensive lineman pulls a State linebacker off of Jefferson who probably should have been penalized for delay of game. The Clemson game if the offense could have converted a short third down would have been able to run out the clock, Clemson gets the ball and proceeds to march down the field for a game winning field goal. This past week against Norte Dame, the defense struggled a majority of the game and again we lose on a last second field goal. Plus, the officials flat out fricked up the call on the fake field at the end of the first half. Bama just flat kicked the shite out of LSU, but in my opinion, should not have been there. They didn't win the SEC, hell they didn't even win the Western Division. LSU should have played Okie State, Oregon or who ever won the Big 10 or ACC depending on the champions records. So, if the defense could have come up a late game stop in a few games and without a few calls that went against LSU, Miles record looks alot better.This is just the way I feel about all of this crap and I am probably about the only one who sees it this way. SORRY ABOUT THE LACK OF PARAGRAPHS. I TYPED IT IN WITH PARAGRAPHS BUT WHEN I PREVIEWD IT, THIS IS HOW IT TURNED OUT. AND I KNOW TLDR BLAB,BLAB,BLAB....

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Not to mention OP just refers to 'bowls' that Bear's team played in. One can see which bowls these were and understand fully why his record was not so great early on. Hint: they were not tier 2-3 bowls.

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Look I usually agree with you on a lot of things, but you are missing the point by a wide margin. The bowls match teams that are pretty even. Why would it matter which bowls they were in? You lost to an opponent who was pretty equal to you.

If we only had a qb...

This is getting so sad.